Summer camp 2012

Summer camp 2012

On 16-25 Julyour traditional summer camp in Sorochany resort took place. This year we hosted not only 20 children from orphanage No 28 but also children from Beslan school No 1: the entire year III class and some of our friends from the high school. The camp was fantastic!

We express gratitude for help and support to Sorochany resort administration and personally its manager Uliana Markova, Charitable Fund “Chance for Life”, Coca-Cola Foundation, Alfa-Bank and personally Tatiana Passko, Yandex, Charitable Fund “Dar”, all our wonderful volunteers, staff members and children.

While we were preparing for the children’s arrival we had an opportunity to sodden under rain, dry up on the sun and admire the rainbow.

As soon as the children arrived, the ceremony of division into families began. As usual, there were four families - Elephants, Zebras, Lions and Giraffes.

Each and every morning the children were offered various master-classes. There were so many of them and they all were so interesting that it was even difficult to make a choice!

Drawing and ceramics,

mosaic and braid weaving,

juggling and guitar playing,

decorating jars and making plant prints,

modelling from balloons and making friendship bracelets,

“flying above the grass” and playing synthesizer,

t-shirt dyeing and soap-making,

drumming and making pictures of plasticine, cooking Armenian grilled vegetables and American marshmallows – and this is not all!

Right after lunch a busy “family life” started.

Each family made performances, painted collective pictures, played various games and when it was sunny (which was extremely rare) we went to the beach.

And in the evenings all the family members gathered around the tea table to discuss their highs and lows of the day. Such meetings helped us bond, understand and support each other.

Our hero Alexander Shishov “caught” one sunny day and organized the banana ride across Iksha water reservoir for the children and adults.

Albina Kazieva – one of the teachers from Beslan - baked delicious Ossetian pies for the whole camp (for which our Beslan friends even brought a special stove along with them). Volunteers from Yandex who were so kind as to visit our camp taught us walking on the rope.

There were also Ossetian dances and mad-hairdo-disco. No less inspiring was «Theatre-on-wheels» in which all the children and grown ups participated. We were divided in two teams and presented each other two fairy tales - an Ossetian “How the Mouse Sought a Bride to her Son and “The Red Ridinghood”.

The ten days of the camp passed very fast and we parted with each other with tears on our eyes. All the children expressed hope that they will come to the next year’s camp again.

Thank you, our tireless cooks – Vera and Olga - who prepared such a delicious and nourishing food for us. In her free-time Vera even chipped out roses and medals from potatoes and presented them to those who helped her best at the kitchen.

The camp wouldn’t have been so interesting and replete without our volunteer’s help.